


It's Not Over Yet

by JulyStorms



Series: Before Colors Broke into Shades [46]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, POV First Person, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi makes a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Over Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Requested anonymously on Tumblr: Levihan & "6. things you said under the stars and in the grass."

“It’s over.”

You say it differently than you say other things. This time there’s a finality to it, like something’s just ended and something new is starting. That’s wishful thinking, you know, and it’s bullshit. It’s fine to be hopeful, but in the end what does it get you? It puts you in a higher place. That’s all.

Maybe that’s what you wanted all along, though. That way, when the end came, the fall would be so far and so fast that by the time you hit the bottom it would already be over. A painless end. But that’s the easy way—a coward’s way, and you’ve never been a coward.

So what are you getting at with this hopeful bullshit?

You dust your clothes off and smile as you stand, and I almost hate it, the way the light jumps off of your glasses and makes you look crazy; you’re no crazier than the rest of us. But then the angle changes as you crane your neck to look down at me, and the spark of the setting sun against your lenses disappears. It leaves you looking normal again—vulnerable, in the remaining light.

I can’t stand it. I can’t stand a lot of things. I can’t _believe_ the way that you can, and not so suddenly—that everything’s over and the world is good. I can’t let myself believe it’s over because if I do and it turns out it’s not—

I’m not like you, you know. I don’t drift with the current.

Not anymore.

But I guess you don’t, either, do you?

Your smile fades when you hold out your hand for me to take—as if I need help getting up off of the ground.

Maybe I do.

Maybe I’m too goddamned tired for this world and what little it has to offer someone like me.

Your offer is tempting. Your hand looks like it always has: rough and calloused with nails shorn awkwardly. Disgusting, really—unkempt. But appealing because it belongs to you. I can almost imagine, for just a moment, that it might even be warm.

I knock it away in a feigned fit of temper (because it would be _so easy_ to take it, so simple to just stop existing right alongside you) and your smile returns, brighter than the stars behind you.

“I guess it’s not over yet,” you say, and laugh as though you’ve shared a great joke with me. “Take all the time you need.” You lift your hand in a wave, but it doesn’t feel like enough—not for this kind of goodbye. But what else can you offer me when we’re like this, anyway?

I find that I can’t speak even though I want to say something: something meaningful. But all that comes out is a sound I’m not even sure is coming from me, and you turn away, still smiling like I made the right choice this time.

“I’ll be seeing you,” is the last thing you tell me, your hand still raised casually as if we’ll run into one another in the mess hall in an hour and you’ll follow it up with a _fancy seeing you here, Levi!_ even though there’s nothing miraculous about it.

My vision distorts and the world around me shifts: the moon becomes a lantern. There is a sigh of relief, but it doesn’t belong to you. It can’t. You’re long gone by now. I know that.

“Captain!” a voice says too close to my ear. I watch the flame bounce against the glass caging of the lantern; it reminds me of your glasses when you read at night, but it lacks your depth. It’s a piss poor substitute, a sad, stray thought.

“We thought we’d lost you,” the voice continues, and a hand settles against my shoulder.

_You almost did_ , is what I want to say, but all that comes out is, “It’s not over yet.”


End file.
